Google-Owned Nest Buys Dropcam, a Home-Monitoring Startup, for $555 Million

Nest Labs, which manufactures digital thermostats and smoke detectors, has purchased Dropcam, a creator of home-monitoring cameras, for $555 million in cash.

Signaling that the connected home industry is rife with potential, the deal follows Google’s acquisition of Nest itself for $3.2 billion in January.

Though Nest is owned by Google, it is undertaking the acquisition on its own, reports Recode. Dropcam will be folded into Nest’s corporate ethos, and will also be subject to its privacy policies -- which state that customer data will never be shared without permission. Like Nest, Dropcam will also operate an ad-free business model. The Dropcam team will relocate from San Francisco to Nest’s offices in Palo Alto, Calif.

In blog posts confirming the purchase, both companies extolled the synchronicity of the deal. While Nest said that both companies “create products that change how people interact with their homes,” Dropcam CEO Greg Duffy called the two ventures “kindred spirits.”

Dropcam, a cloud-based video streaming service founded in 2009, currently vends two camera models, a motion sensor device and charges monthly or yearly fees for cloud video storage. Its aim is to enable users to monitor their homes with footage that can be viewed through a web app or via smartphones in real time.

Falling under the Google umbrella, Dropcam represents the latest foray by the search giant into an ever-expanding realm of smart products, which already includes televisions, glasses, watches and cars.